SOURCE: "Kafka's Ein Hungerkünstler: A Reconsideration," in The German Quarterly, Vol. XLVI, No. 2, March, 1973, pp. 219-33.

In the following essay, Sheppard examines the role of the narrator and its relationship to the central character of "A Hunger Artist. "

In the general attempt to say what the figure of Kafka's Hunger Artist signifies, scarcely any attention has been paid to another person in the story who is at least as important as the Hunger Artist: the narrator. On the whole, it has been assumed that the narrator is Kafka himself, if perhaps speaking in an odd voice. But this is not the case. In fact, the narrator has a distinct personality and functions as an independent character in the story.

The narrator's personality is above all evident from his style: Außer den wechselnden Zuschauern waren auch ständige, vom Publikum gewählte Wächter da, merkwürdigerweise...